International Conference on Sri Lanka Studies (ICSLS)
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Item Urban Land and Property Markets in Colombo, Sri Lanka: Its way through Past Decades(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Ariyawansa, R.G.Sri Lanka practices market-oriented economic policies concerning its’ development for nearly three decades. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the country’s experience of the market system and its impacts even on property development. The main objective of this paper is to review the evaluation of land and property markets in the country in general and in the city of Colombo in particular. This study is based exclusively on secondary data and a theoretical exercise. This paper discusses in detail about the historical context of property development, new experiences in the recent past and the current challenges in the sector. The study realizes that the Colombo case provides a valuable experience for the global body of knowledge regarding “urban real estate markets in developing countries”. In fact, massive economic reforms have already established the market system in the country in general and in the capital city of Colombo in particular. However, frequent political instability, and civil disorder prevailed in the recent past prevent the market system from smooth and rapid growing. In addition, state vision on more advanced real estate development seems inadequate. State mere belief is handing over the responsibility to the private sector as a panacea. Research & development, internationally accredited professional practices etc are lack in the state attention. As in many developing countries, even in Sri Lanka, mostly valuation and planning professions are still used as statutory and some legal purposes. Therefore, the land and property market in the city of Colombo is growing slowly due to such social, political, and professional constrains, which keep the market still in less efficient and immature. Therefore, higher property price and unsatisfactory demand and imprudent private sector land development have become serious consequences in Colombo city and suburban land and property markets.Item Investment Policies of the Development of Road Network in Sri Lanka During the British Colonial Period and it’s Impacts to 21st Century(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Caldera, R.K.L.P.The theoretical economic background of the British colonial administration in Sri Lanka is an observable component. The mercantilism and laissez-fair policy was the sprit of British rulers and, their investment policies were based on classical economic theories. To achieve the objectives of mercantilism and laissez-fair policies, the British rulers followed the policy of state patronage for creating imports for Sri Lankan market and capital exports for Great Britain. To achieve this objective, British rulers invested considerable amount of capital in Sri Lanka to develop our road network. A hundred years of British government activity in Sri Lanka resulted in providing islandwide useful road transport network. During the British colonization period, export based plantation agriculture was the most important economic sector in the country. Therefore, developments on the transport network came to play a very important role in Sri Lanka. During the British colonial period, entire administration of the road network system was done by central government and it was not decentralized. But presently, A and B class roads are under the Road Development Authority (RDA)of Sri Lanka and remaining road networks are under local governments and other public and private institutions. The entire rail track network of the country is still managed by Sri Lanka Railway Department (SLRD). The present national transport network of Sri Lanka includes nearly 100,000 Kilometers of roads and 1,463 Kilometers of rail track network. This study is an attempt to analysis of British colonial economic policies and infrastructure development policies in Sri Lanka in comparison to those of the 21st century. Therefore, this study is mainly focused on past and present economic policies, objectives, impacts and factors leading to economic development in the country. This study is focused in particulars on the capital raising methods of British colonial administration for road development and construction, and its economic impacts on 21st century in Sri Lanka.Item Encouraging Entrepreneurship Education and Development in Jaffna District(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Sivaskaran, T.Entrepreneurship contributes to the economy of a community in many ways. For the society and communities, entrepreneurship provides the means for achieving the level of diversity, innovation and independent decision-making required for the survival, development and freedom. Entrepreneurship education is becoming a component of new economic strategies for fostering job creation. The outcome of entrepreneurship education is emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs who create jobs not only for themselves, but also for others. Jaffna is part of Sri Lanka which is highly affected by war for the last twenty years. The one and the only environment opened for youngsters is educational environment. After finishing their education they expect job opportunities from the government. This suggests that there is an urgent and growing need to develop more indigenous enterprises primarily to provide more employment opportunities for the young people. The present study was conducted taking randomly selected 100 graduates and 100 dropout students in Advance Level classes to examine to what extent they have an idea to start a new business rather than searching a job in the government sector. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and were analysed simple ratio analysis. The findings indicate that the problem youngsters who live in Jaffna face is unemployment. So, increased efforts and support to foster entrepreneurship education and development are certainly important solutions to help overcome this problem.Item Is A Strong Economy Important For A Small Neighbouring Open Economy?(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Huang, K.H.As China has significantly grasped the most important market in the world, India is the second biggest market in the world. How about the effect of such a powerful economy to the neighbouring small economies? Is it a threat or an opportunity for its neighbouring small economies? Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea have shared the growth of Japan in 1970s-80s and China in 1990s-2000s, mainly underpinned by the previous colonial linkage and historical common cultural background. How about the effect of India upon the development of Sri Lanka? We will examine the extent that the relationship between India and Sri Lanka in terms of economic integration? Is there factors making such a difference from Chinese economies? Diversified cultural difference and unique colonial background could have certain effects.Item Peripheral Backwardness in Rapidly Developing Regions: A Case Study in Gampaha District in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Sakalasooriya, N.Regional disparity of development has been the focus in many discussions on development issues in the third world during the past three decades. The economic growth and modernization are skewed in favour of metropolitan core area in the Western Province of Sri Lanka due to numerous historical and geographical factors.The more developed and highly urbanized Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR) that approximates the Western Province of the island has emerged as the centre of gravity in the national economy. This region had a population of over 5.3 million in 2001(27.89 per cent of total population of the country) concentrated into 5 per cent of the total land area. The counter forces of polarisation, such as spread effects have not been so vital even within the immediate peripheries of the core area. The widening inequalities at local levels caused disintegration of socio-economic systems even within the fast changing areas like Gampaha district of Sri Lanka. The present paper is an analysis of the prevailing spatial inequality of the development in the district and an exploration into causes and consequences of underdevelopment of peripheral rural areas.The Western coastal belt of the district enjoyed benefits of the recent developments in the metropolitan economy, through expanding physical infrastructure, industrialisation and employment generation. According to the explanations of National Human Development Report (1998), as well as different authors like O’Hare and Barrett (1996) and Moor (1985), Gampaha is identified as the most developed district of Western Province as well as in Sri Lanka. However, according to the Gini coefficient of income and percentage of income received by the poorest 40% of household, Gampaha district indicates an unsatisfactory situation of development. The weakening of the agricultural base in the district as a whole was experienced during the last few decades, although the dependence on small farm sector by the majority of households in these areas have been major characteristics of this region. Weak backward linkages of modern industrial economy with rural periphery, insufficient services and infrastructure facilities are seen as key issues related to this backwardness, according to the survey. This study closely observed micro-level variations in development in the selected divisions of the district, with special reference to spatial patterns of poverty and migration and employment structure that are related to the peripheral backwardness. Land use changes associated with industrialization and suburban growth and concentration of services into few centres are among key areas of the discussion. Validity of available theoretical and empirical knowledge in explaining ongoing spatial changes in the district is evaluated in the conclusion.Item Development Strategies in Sri Lanka: Lessons Drawn from a Comparative Review(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Fernando, R.L.S.Unbalanced development is a major cause of social disharmony and unrest as it widens the gap between the rich and the poor. Achieving a sustainable and balanced development is a major challenge for developing countries, and Sri Lanka is no exception. Sri Lanka has been experiencing various development strategies for the last five decades, but the country has yet to achieve at least its most basic development goals. This paper attempts to evaluate two main development strategies implemented by the successive governments of Sri Lanka. They are the import substitution strategies with a high degree of state intervention implemented from 1970 to 1976, and the privatization and free market policies implemented after the 1977 up to the present. It is evident that the results of these development strategies are not much satisfactory. It is also evident that the very state interventionist strategies had contributed to social unrest and disharmony in the country because of a high incidence of unemployment and poverty. The latter strategy has also contributed to the same, as only a few groups of people have highly benefited from these existing development processes. Therefore, it is imperative to search an alternative approach to the development process towards a long-term sustainable economy. In this regard, a balanced approach in which both active and strong, but more selective government intervention with the market mechanism would be proposed as an alternative model for development as the final goal of the development would be to improve the quality of life of the majority of its citizen. The study is mainly based on the secondary data issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and other related documents. The analysis will be mostly descriptive in nature and some economic and social indicators will also be used as appropriate.Item Economic Development and National Defence in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Jayawardena, M.M.The discussion on national defence and economic growth/development goes back to the deep roots of history, despite the marginal academic interest. The accumulated studies in the literature of economics of defence show an ambiguity of the theoretical underpinning of the subject matter. But every country allocates a comparatively significant % of GDP on national defence. (Todd Sandler and Keirth Hartley 1996). Until 1970s, defence services in Sri Lanka had been almost purely ceremonial. The size of defence was merely less than 1% of GDP with the bottom line objectives. Thereafter, it has increased up to 7% in certain years (e.g.1987, 1995). The national defence in Sri Lanka holds a crucial responsibility under the prevailing conflict ridden atmosphere and the geo-political position of the island nation in the face of economic growth and development. Here, the expected contributions of national defence is hypothetically identified as ‘product, ‘equality’, ‘employment’ ‘social transformation’, ‘self esteem’ and ‘stability’.(9th conference of S/L Studies, 2003).During the study period, from 1970 to 2004, the economic growth rate has been from -1.4 to 6% per annum with an average growth rate of 4.2%. The product contribution against the increase of the size of national defence is not sufficient. Secondly, through the recruitments to the armed forces, the rural sector/underprivileged population has been benefited directly and also through trickle down effects. Therefore, the equality contribution has been positive. Similar positive contribution can also be observed with respect to the employment contribution, because defence has become one of the major effective sources of employment. Fourthly, though it is too early to comment on its positive contribution to the social transformation, there is a tendency towards a new ‘social contract’ as the extreme parties of the society have begun to moderate their views and move towards coexistence. However, with respect to the social transformation the legitimate forces are still to contribute to prevent the exploitation by the extreme elements like the LTTE. Fifthly, during the last thirty years or so the self-esteem of the nation has been severely affected mainly because of the setback in the discipline and the goal directed behaviour of both the individuals and the nation under conflict ridden atmosphere. Finally the failure to compensate the opportunity cost created by heavy defence on health, education and other infrastructure investment has negatively affected on the stability as well as the progress of the country. This has been further aggravated by the continuous inflation mainly resulted from the defence burden. The study shows firstly that the hypothesized contributions cannot be cardinally measured and secondly, that in the Sri Lankan context in particular, those hypothesized contributions are insufficient for the economic growth and development. Thus, it is important to study whether it is a problem of the identified theoretical frame or a possible inefficiency and/or other limitations of the functioning of national defence in Sri Lanka towards the set objectives.